


you shouldn’t hold your sunlight too close to the sand

by bloominghwa



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cake, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Could Be Platonic, M/M, im just self projecting onto yeosang now oop, im not thinking of it platonically though, seonghwa and I did yeosang dirty, the rest of ateez is mentioned, yeosang is sad, yeosang is trying his best, yeosang wants seonghwa to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-22 19:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19985899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloominghwa/pseuds/bloominghwa
Summary: yeosang knows it wasn’t easy to be with someone that didn’t love themself.seonghwa learns that loving someone else can hurt you more than you know





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> there will be some maybe triggering things in this fic so if you are sensitive to death or anything please look away !!

yeosang built himself an average life that he likes to think of as the teetering sandcastle he built when he was a kid. boring, to put it simply. he finds little joy in the grains of the two slumping towers, and it was more than enough most of the time. he fills the rooms with figures he liked to call friends, and he knew almost everyone, but he didn’t know if they recognized him, if they even considered him as a friend. his grades are pinned all over the walls, solid average of a’s with a glaring disappointment of a b in math consistently, and tests, only the big ones, he fails, painting the castle shades of violet. yeosang has an average life in the shape of his childhood.

the one constant that yeosang has that just didn’t fit into his tottering sandcastle is his roommate, seonghwa. seonghwa, to yeosang, is larger than life, a marble statue in his room of faceless figurines. he spoke in the way warm honey would trickle down a sore throat and he exuded an attractiveness like fragrant peonies in a field of daisies. seonghwa, an immobile buzz that shakes yeosang’s fragile sandcastle. 

seonghwa is an effigy that yeosang struggles to comprehend, even more so when he was the first to ever properly see yeosang. he didn’t look the type. yeosang tries and fails to wraps his warped mind around why an aphrodisiac filled to the brim with obscured, unending warmth would approach him first with his collapsing castle. but he was thankful.

truthfully, yeosang doesn’t know why seonghwa stays. there were days that yeosang would shrink, become absorbed within himself and his little sandcastle will turn white and bury yeosang in layers upon layers, and seonghwa would slog through the blackened sky and take a shovel and remove the thick white blanket without a single word. yeosang would sometimes walk through a field of orange lilies and come out painted red, and seonghwa would silently take a cool towel and clean away the beautiful scarlet. whenever yeosang’s castle falters and crumbles, seonghwa picks up a bucket and begins to fill it with sand again. yeosang doesn’t know why he stays.

yeosang himself craves to be larger than life, for attention, in uglier terms. for people to notice him and tell him that he is worth whatever space he’s taking up, he decorates his sandcastle, but only sometimes, because yeosang hated others eyes on him. when he dresses the sandy confines in coreopsis and gleaming gold, seonghwa takes away the tawdry pieces one by one secretly, as to not hurt yeosang, but yeosang caught the missing pieces anyways. he was thankful.

so when seonghwa said he had met someone, yeosang’s sandcastle collapsed. this is the first time seonghwa didn’t notice, and the bucket that was used for sand was left collecting the shards of broken cobwebs. 

yeosang didn’t mind that seonghwa is happy now, he smiles more and his eyes holds the loveliest gardens, and yeosang tells himself he doesn’t mind. after all, yeosang found little joy in everything.

it didn’t hurt when seonghwa skips his hangouts with yeosang because he forgotten time with his newest friends. yeosang thought they are all great people as it is, a bit like seonghwa in their difference with the figures in yeosang’s sand castle, but he couldn’t help but feel vines of envy curling around the sandcastle and suffocating the walls. seonghwa had met people like him, and a feeling of worthlessness leaves yeosang laughing.

on the rare day that seonghwa is in their room, it happens to be his birthday. yeosang knows seonghwa had forgotten when he starts the day perched on his bed, typing away at an assignment. while thinking of surprising him with a surprise cake that he managed to bake himself, yeosang’s pocket vibrates furiously, and he looks at the caller only to feel grains of sand crawl down his columns.

he excuses himself into his own room and picks up. he sits there and listens to soothing words slither into his palace walls and curling onto the towers. they squeeze and squeeze onto his hopeful dreams and leaves his already-crumbling castle into ruins. yeosang inhales, and yeosang smiles.

he heads out only to see seonghwa packing frantically and shoving his phone and keys into his jean pockets.

“heading out?” yeosang questions from his position behind the door. 

“yeah,” seonghwa responds, looking into yeosang’s eyes with his blooming gaze and yeosang couldn’t look away. “don’t wait up for me okay? i could get you some ice cream on the way back if you want.”

seonghwa smiles and the sand on the ground trembles.

“it’s your birthday today.” yeosang’s words barely disturb the wafting silence between them, his low voice trembling ever so slightly. yeosang feels like he is talking to a stranger, seonghwa’s face becoming a little more foreign and his hair, when had it become blonde?

“oh!” seonghwa’s eyes widen and yeosang feels a twinge of warm smile on his face. “is it really today? i forgot.”

“well,” yeosang says with a bigger smile now, “i’ll have to sing you happy birthday then.”

the crumpled pile of sand with all of yeosang’s little figurines and gaudy petals grew a little and a slim pillar of gritty caramel built itself up again as yeosang sang in his low, soft voice. after he finishes the last note, yeosang opens his eyes and peers into seonghwa’s curiously. seonghwa has on a smile softer than yeosang has ever seen and his eyes holds something that yeosang has never seen before.

“thank you,” seonghwa said, “your voice- this is the best present i will ever receive.”

he turns away before yeosang could finish reading what he didn’t say through his eyes.

“ah-” yeosang feels his tongue falter and he feels sand gathering in the back of his throat. seonghwa turned back and stares at him with an inquisitive gaze.

“it’s nothing. stay safe.”

the door lock clicks after a few seconds and yeosang stands alone in his fractured sand castle. he looks up and sees the tip of his pillar distort and bend until it became transparent.

yeosang rolls up the sleeves of his pink sweater and makes his way out of the room down the hallway to the shared bathroom of the dorm. he peers into every stall and goes back to the door of the bathroom and locks it. seeing something streak past in his peripherals, yeosang jerks around in surprise only to meet his own dull eyes smiling at him in the mirror.

he almost laughs at his appearance.

yeosang watches his pillar twist as it slowly melds into translucent grains that reflected that ebony sky. red flowers begin to burst from the sand and their petals shone through the creamy flesh of the earth. yeosang thought they were beautiful. with his pink sweater sleeves pulled up, yeosang burns in guilty pleasure as the watches more scarlet petals touch the light.

there wasn’t enough space around anymore for his red flowers to bloom. the mound that was his lovely little sand castle is now a little hill with scarlet growth. yeosang wasn’t all that proud.

he went back to his room with his sleeves rolled down, shooting a smile at the ra as he passed. he crossed his arms too, because he felt that his sweater sleeves were a tint pinker than before.

yeosang sits in his room and he feels the air around him turn white. the smell of his red flowers pierce the room and drifts around him, almost becoming overbearing with the sharp tang. a soft hush of voices began to pick up in the empty rooms. yeosang’s arm begins to itch. 

he calls seonghwa. it goes to voicemail.

he dials seonghwa’s phone number several more times, each time becoming more hysterically calm than the last, but he never got a response. 

it’s better this way, yeosang thought as he decides to send seonghwa a text. his fingers hover over the message and he considers whether he should send it. he hesitates when he looks at seonghwa’s contact name from when they first met. tracing over the little flower emoji next to seonghwa’s name, he feels a warmth that surfaces under his skin briefly. for the first time, he felt a wave of emotion and his eyes were alive for a single moment, and he thinks about seonghwa with his smile and his warm hands and his soothing honey voice. and he was grateful that seonghwa stayed. 

fueled on something close to regret, yeosang types everything he never got to tell seonghwa, about how thankful he was, about how sorry he was. he told seonghwa that he didn’t need to worry about yeosang leaving his clothes on the couch anymore, and how seonghwa’s hoodies and shirts wouldn’t keep disappearing. he talks about how pretty he thinks the stars are and how lovely the sunrise is. impulsively, yeosang also writes about the garden in seonghwa’s eyes. 

with the last of his words trickling down like sand, yeosang feels his head collapsing in on itself as whispers become screams and everything is suddenly so loud. he faintly remembers that seonghwa preferred everything spotless. he makes his bed and cleans the floor, and he writes a note, because he knew that seonghwa wouldn’t want to see his crimson buds discarded on the floor. with a last look at the rising dawn, he smiles in satisfaction and closes his door. 

the ebony sky beginning to tint carmine over the horizon, a singular crystalline pillar stood tall in what used to be yeosang’s little sandcastle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maybe he was a bit selfish, but yeosang liked seeing his red flowers bloom
> 
> if seonghwa was to be described as a sunflower, yeosang was his sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually pretty bad I just threw words together and hoped it was sad.

seonghwa did not have a straight purpose. he does everything to the best of his abilities and he never fails. seonghwa understood nothing about failure, so when he burst back into his shared dorm with yeosang and discovered a sharp metallic tang and a meticulous note taped neatly on yeosang’s door, he didn’t scream.

don’t come in the room. it said in yeosang’s neat little scrawl. don’t come in and just call the police. 

seonghwa read the note once, and then again, and he pressed his hand against the cold wood of yeosang’s bedroom door. 

the room is abnormally warm and the last of the dying sunlight filters through the drawn pink curtains. from his view outside the bedroom, seonghwa sees a chair toppled over on yeosang’s snow white carpet.

he calls the ambulance.

seonghwa doesn’t know how long he’s been standing in the doorway, but he is soon shoved away from yeosang by a wave of bodies. he hears commotion around him, but his head is tipped underwater and he barely registers the insensitive questions thrown at him by the officers and the ra. he doesn’t respond.

seonghwa hadn’t yet solved the mystery that is kang yeosang. even though they’ve known each other for years, he was never fully able to uncover yeosang’s mysterious smile. he promises himself again that he would. his crystal clear mind became as clouded as the sky.

what seonghwa knows though, is that yeosang is home. his small figure rushing around the kitchen of their dorm whenever seonghwa comes home late to prepare him dinner isn’t just familiarity. it isn’t just habit for seonghwa to see his tiny sunshine smile when they walk out the dorms together. seonghwa turns to yeosang like a sunflower towards the sun. yeosang draws seonghwa in with his quiet energy and silver smiles, and seonghwa is enamored with the warmth that yeosang is. the supernova that is kang yeosang still shines so softly even when his intent was to protect himself. 

the paramedics carry a stretcher out of yeosang’s room. a thin, pale arm slides out softly from underneath the white sheet. the tang of blood is stronger now.

he walks out.

seonghwa doesn’t come back to the dorm until the next night. he stands in the hallway for a while, his face pressed close to the door as he tries to hear the familiar shuffle of yeosang’s feet on their floor. he doesn’t hear anything. taking out his room key, seonghwa unlocks the door and presses open the cold wood.

half expecting yeosang’s cheerful greeting from the living room, seonghwa yells out an “i’m home”. he sees yeosang greet him with a smile and a bowl of ramen that is still hot, as if he knew exactly when seonghwa would come back. a foreign tugging in his chest pulls him down as he looks down into the large wet eyes of yeosang, and he sees yeosang’s lips glow with a smile. seonghwa doesn’t blink and doesn’t move, he doesn’t want the sunlight to leave yeosang’s eyes. the eyes in front of seonghwa glow black and seonghwa feels the breath hanging in the air shudder and fall, like it became alive under yeosang’s luminosity.

unwittingly, the tug that grounded seonghwa came loose, and seonghwa reaches out for yeosang only to see a fleeting half smile before the shadows sheds away yeosang grain by grain. seonghwa is left with the noiseless kitchen table and flickering hope that burns the inside of his chest.

he opens the fridge on his hazy state and he expected emptiness. instead he sees a chocolate frosted cake decorated generously with sugary petals of swirling chocolate and vanilla.

Happy Birthday Hwa !!

the white frosted letters are written shakily in yeosang’s neat little writing under the fogged-up plastic lid of the container. seonghwa lets out a shaky breath as his gaze wavers on the cake. reaching both hands down shakily, seonghwa gingerly caresses the bottom of the plate as he lifts up the dessert from the bottom layer of the fridge. he stops, and he puts it back down and closes the fridge door.

———————————————

months past and the traces of yeosang are still left fresh in the walls of their room. the pink curtains that yeosang insists on, and seonghwa complained falsely about, still flutters when seonghwa comes in the door. the couch that yeosang hated still sits in its ugly repulsive sky blue skin, but this time without a small weight constantly curling up in one of its cushions. seonghwa’s friends had come over one by one; mingi bringing over food and water for seonghwa, whose cheeks are beginning to hollow and pale, and wooyoung, bringing over san and jongho, giving him company with their loud laughter and dramatic jokes, even though seonghwa sits straight with his lips drawn closed. seonghwa started to wilt without his sun.

hongjoong and yunho takes matters into their own hands and reconstructed a replica of home and placed it on the pedestal with yeosang’s name on it and gives it to seonghwa. seonghwa appreciated the home and thanks them and set it to the side because it didn’t feel right. the sun burned out quicker than yeosang’s light ever would and seonghwa just couldn’t flower again. 

the false home brought back to him when he had picked up the cake yeosang made a while ago, and a closer look revealed the cracks in the immaculate frosting created by the saccharine growth decorating it. seonghwa had taken a knife and cut almost violently, a slice of the dessert and placed it on a plate painted with birds and a blue sky. yeosang had remembered his passing comment. it was vanilla. 

it had took all his willpower to refrain from throwing the knife across the table. something as red as the floor of yeosang’s untouched bedroom simmered underneath seonghwa’s skin and he had fought back the urge to vomit as he observed the cake. taking a fork, he had stabbed the cake in delicate violence and taken a bite. he threw up.

all the loss and wet regrets came rushing down his face as he choked into that trash can that he and yeosang had picked out together. yeosang is everywhere yet nowhere at all. seonghwa hiccuped as he emptied the contents in his stomach along with the memories of opening his phone to yeosang’s missed calls and messages that begged for seonghwa to come home and get rid of the flowers that plagued his mind and his skin and was filling his lungs with things that he thought he got rid of a long time ago. the memories of the way yeosang’s eyes glowed a little when he reminded seonghwa with barely tangible playfulness his own birthday, and then sang seonghwa happy birthday with his low and soothing voice. the memory of utter numbness when he sprints back home only to find the little sunlight he had was shot down by an arrow and left the world in black.

with his eyes and throat and mouth burning, seonghwa had whipped out his phone and typed with his blurred eyesight everything he said too late. 

seonghwa never bloomed again. everyone else told him it wasn’t his fault. yeosang told him it wasn’t his fault. the truth was that seonghwa left yeosang in a blizzard of his own white sand and didn’t even pick up the shovel. 

he could tell yeosang’s castle was crumbling when he leaves yeosang waiting for hours upon hours only to cancel their plans for san or wooyoung or any of the others, yet he brushed it all aside because he couldn’t hold on to his own feelings. he regretted that he couldn’t see the scarlet petals trailing down yeosang’s arms and that he had simply brushed away the odd feelings the night of his birthday when yeosang stopped him. he wished he never went down to the field with yunho and hongjoong and jongho. he wished he never went back with mingi and wooyoung and san. he wished, that if anything could be reversed, he wanted to stay. he wished he had stayed

now seonghwa is alone in his own blizzard too, because a sunflower without their sun would lose the one purpose they had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please help me  
> twitter @frecklyhoney

**Author's Note:**

> any suggestions you can send to my Twitter @bloominghwas!!
> 
> (it’s private but i’ll follow back if you request :) )


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